Fred Purkey is a partner in the Taxation practice. He advises clients, both corporate and individual, on the income tax aspects of corporate reorganizations, business and personal trusts (in particular, real estate investment trusts and income funds), owner-managed businesses, Goods and Services Tax, public and private mergers and acquisitions, employee compensation arrangements, and personal tax and estate planning.

Representative Work

• Acted as counsel to the Molson brothers Geoff, Andrew and Justin, in connection with the acquisition of the Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club by the investment group led by the Molson brothers, which transaction is considered to be one of the most significant North American acquisitions in professional sports. The Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club is one of the oldest established National Hockey League (NHL) franchises, and among the most successful clubs in North American sports history. The transaction also included the purchase of the Montreal Bell Centre and the Gillett Entertainment Group.
• Acted for CDP Financial Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, in connection with an offering of US$5 billion of senior notes in the United States. This offering is the largest non-government guaranteed offering by any Canadian issuer in US dollars to date.
• Acted for TSX Group Inc. in its acquisition of Bourse de Montréal Inc. in a transaction valued at $1.3 billion which created TMX Group Inc., a leading integrated multi-asset stock exchange group.
• Acted for Cominar Real Estate Investment Trust, the largest commercial property owners and managers in the Province of Québec in its $592 million acquisition of 6.5 million square feet of office and industrial properties from Homburg Invest Inc., representing approximately 72% of the leasable space acquired by Homburg in its purchase of Alexis Nihon REIT.
• Acted for Circuit City Stores, Inc.’s acquisition of InterTAN, Inc., operator of Radio Shack stores in Canada, in a transaction valued at approximately US$286 million to create The Source by Circuit City.
• Acted for Vitol Refining Group B.V. on its sale of North Atlantic Refining Limited to Harvest Energy Trust in a transaction valued at $1.6 billion.
• Acted for Schonbek Worldwide Lighting Inc. and its affiliated companies in connection with their sale to Swarovski US Holding Ltd., a subsidiary of Swarovski International Holding.
• Acted for Madacy Entertainment Income Fund in connection with its initial public offering for total proceeds of $75.4 million.
• Represented Holiday Group Inc. when Borealis Capital Corp. acquired a majority interest in Montréal-based Holiday Group Inc. and Florida-based Travelpro International, Inc., two leading North American suppliers of luggage and bags, from Wafra Partners LLC and management shareholders.
• Represented Systemcorp A.L.G. Limited, a Montréal-based company, and a leading provider of project portfolio management software, when it was acquired by IBM Canada Limited.

Articles and Publications

Fred has been published in Tax Topics, Quebec Tax Reporter, Preparing Your Income Tax Returns, and Preparing Your Corporate Returns (all published by CCH). He has also been published in Corporate Structures and Groups, Resource Sector Taxation (both published by Federated Press) and Stratège, a journal of the Association de planification fiscale et financière ("APFF"). He has written on personal and business trusts in the 2004 Conference Report of the Canadian Tax Foundation.  Fred is also on the editorial board of Personal Tax and Estate Planning by Federated Press.

Teaching Engagements

Fred has been a Lecturer on Taxation at the McGill University Law School, and on the taxation of real estate in the McGill University Graduate Diploma in Taxation program.

Speaking Engagements

Fred has spoken at tax conferences organized by the Canadian Tax Foundation, the APFF, Federated Press, the Barreau du Québec and by the Strategy Institute.

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